I tell you these things, not to boast or to impress you, but to make a point. The other day, as I was reading them once again, asking the Lord for a message, I realized something which had never occurred to me before. It’s not particularly important, and you would not be penalized for missing it on any tests of Bible knowledge given to you by the angels of God. But verse 15 repeats a rather important Greek word, yet our King James Bibles translates them differently. “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring the gospel of good things!” The definition of “euaggelizo” (yoo-ang-ghel-id’-zo) is “preach the glad tidings” or “declare the good news,” and it is often rendered simply “preach the gospel.” But in this verse it is translated two different ways.
This morning, we have a very simple message – but it is a gospel message.
Today, Isaiah 53 is one of the most beloved chapters in the Old Testament. That is because to the enlightened Christian heart, it is an unmistakable prophesy of the coming Messiah. Please turn to Isaiah 53 – “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him no.” Not only is this a picture of sacrifice and death of the Lord Jesus, but it goes on to describe theologically what that death means to the believers. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The details of Isaiah 53 are so sharp and clear that it almost reads like a chapter from one of the 4 gospels. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” Then, as we know, the four gospels flow into theological books like Romans, Ephesians and Colossians. “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Isaiah 53 is unmistakably “Messianic” – it is prophesying the coming Messiah – the Christ, the Saviour. And so are the preceding and following chapters in Isaiah, but in a different sort of way. Isaiah had been warning the Jews that they were going into Babylonian captivity because of their sins. But he also encouraged them to repent and to look to the Lord, even while in their captivity. Isaiah 51:1 – “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” Verse 4 – “Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people. Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.”
Skip down to chapter 52 – “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.” And now we come to Paul’s quotation – “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
Isaiah, under the direction of the Lord, and with his words given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was warning and prophesying about physical and national captivity. He referred to the captivity of the Northern Tribes’ by the Assyrians and to Israel’s earlier captivity in Egypt. But Judah was to go into their own captivity under the Babylonians. And yet, they would be eventually redeemed by the power of God – restored – saved. Paul takes the same words as Isaiah, and with the same direction of God, given under the same inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but he applies those words to spiritual deliverance – to salvation – and not just to Israel or Judah, but to people from throughout the world – to us.
Look at Isaiah 52:7 once again and notice that the beautiful feet belong to a single person. Many believe that this is a reference to the Saviour. But under the direction of the Holy Spirit, Paul makes the word plural, and applies it to anyone who carries the gospel to the captive.
You and I were born in slavery. We either were, or still are, captives to our sin nature and the judgment that it deserves. In our youth and well beyond, we committed sin after sin, heaping up the wrath of God over our heads. The sword of Damocles hung above us with nothing but the very weak thread of physical life preventing it from slicing us open from our heads to our hearts. But by the grace of God, the beautiful feet of some evangelist carried the voice and message of the gospel. And in the case of many of us, the Lord opened our hearts, opened our ears and gave us wisdom to understand our desperate situation. It was then that the gospel became the good news of peace to our souls.
That is the message of Paul gleaned from the prophesy of Isaiah.
In Romans 1:1 Paul introduced himself to his readers. “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of GOD.” The gospel of Christ is the gospel of God, because Christ and the Father are one. In the same chapter Paul said, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of HIS SON, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. And two verses later “I am not ashamed of the gospel of CHRIST: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” To the Ephesian elders he said that he was called “to testify the gospel of the GRACE of God.” In all these cases and a couple of others, the scriptures are talking about different aspects of the same thing – the good news of deliverance from sin and the joy of living under the Kingship of Christ. And even when Paul referred to “the gospel of CIRCUMCISION,” the meaning was the same. He said that to the Apostle Peter was given the ministry of preaching the gospel primarily to the Jews, but to him was the task of preaching primarily to non-Jews. “The gospel of the UNCIRCUMCISION was committed unto me, as the gospel of the CIRCUMCISION was unto Peter.”
Now, here in Romans 10:15 reference is made to the “gospel of PEACE” and “glad tidings of GOOD THINGS.” The other day a man mentioned to me that he was pleased that most of my messages eventually come back to salvation and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not sure that as many of them return to the Lord as I could wish, but it certainly a good objective. And these two gospel references certainly do exactly that. The gospel of Christ, the gospel of God, the gospel grace, is also a gospel of good things and peace, because by nature sinners are at war with God. Anyone who loves this wicked world; anyone who loves sin; anyone who is more in love with himself than he is with Jehovah, is at enmity against God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” “Enmity” is obviously related to the word “enemy” and speaks about a deep-seated and mutual hatred between two persons.
A love of the things which God hates puts every human being on a collision course with the holiness of God. And obviously that is a battle which no man can win. There have been people traveling in cars at 70 mph which met other cars traveling at the same speed. And a few of those people walked away from those crashes for one reason or another. But when we are talking about sinners running into the holiness and justice of God, there is no comparison. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” “Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.” “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” These verses, and the hundred others just like them, are not conveying good news.
And yet there is good news, because the gospel of Christ is a gospel of peace. I Corinthians 15 – “Brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” Those scriptures tell us that “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Christ Jesus, went to the cross bearing the sins of those He intended to save. When He died, He did so just as thousands of Old Testament animal sacrifices had died – in the place of the sinner who offered it to the Lord. And in the shedding of the Saviour’s blood, the penalty required for the sins of the offerer was covered – they were atoned through the death and blood of that perfect, divine sacrifice.
The gospel is the good news of peace, because it tells the sinner that reconciliation has been affected with God. The war is over because the required penalty has been exacted – but it was exacted upon a Substitute. And through that sacrificial death, the sinner – that repenting, believing sinner – is redeemed and reconciled to God. In fact he is made a child of the Lord – fully adopted into the Divine family. For someone who knows all the facts of the case that is very, very good news indeed – those are words of the most peace-giving kind.
“Whosoever believeth on Christ Jesus the Saviour shall not be ashamed.” “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Have you called upon the Lord in repentance and faith? Has this message of Christ become a gospel of peace to your soul?